Former Team India skipper Sourav Ganguly had urged the Indian selectors to bring back KL Rahul in the squad, and his wish was fulfilled as the Karnataka lad was named in the Test squad against Sri Lanka and also the T20I squad against New Zealand. The home team lost the opening ODI against the Black Caps to surrender a 0-1 lead to the visitors.
Barring a Kohli master class, the top order couldn’t quite get going and lost wickets at regular intervals. The openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma were dismissed cheaply while Kedar Jadhav and Dinesh Karthik also failed to seize their opportunity. Karthik though scored 37 and shared a useful stand with captain Kohli.
“I am not too happy seeing KL Rahul out of the squad because he is a player for the future. Dinesh Karthik made his debut in 2007 with us and it has been 10 years but he has not been able to get a permanent place in the side which speaks a lot about how he has gone about his cricketing career in the last 10 years.
“With KL Rahul, he is someone who has scored runs all around the world, whether it is Australia, Sri Lanka or West Indies. I think KL Rahul should be brought back into this team as soon as possible because I think he is a serious talent. KL Rahul’s record and quality and also because he is young, he should be included in the squad”, Ganguly was quoted as saying by India Today.
KL Rahul has been impressive in the longest format of the game and was instrumental in helping India reclaim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy earlier in the year. He was tried in the middle order position during the ODI’s in Sri Lanka, but it didn’t work out, and hence he was dropped from the ODI squad for the ODI series against New Zealand. Despite his indifferent form in the limited overs format, he is a player for the future, and in his brief career, he has already shown his potential in both Tests and ODI’s.
“Rahul has got runs all around the world, he has got hundreds all around the world and is just a very good talent. He is the only player among all these youngsters apart from Virat Kohli who has played all three formats for the game and has got success in all three formats of the game. Rohit Sharma struggled in Test cricket, Ajinkya Rahane has struggled in One Day cricket to a little extent and then there are Kedar Jadhav and Manish Pandey who primarily play ODI cricket.
“Except Virat Kohli he (Rahul) is the only guy who has played all three formats and even Dhoni does not play all three formats anymore. From that point of view, I think it was a bit tough leaving out KL Rahul. He could have batted at no.4 and I do not see a problem with that because he got that big hundred in Florida batting at no.4 spot in a T20 game. The only thing is that the directions have to be clear. MS Dhoni can be asked to bat at no.4 because we have seen in recent times that he has taken a little time to settle down. He needs someone to keep playing shots at the other end so that he (Dhoni) can see through the game”, added Ganguly.
Despite the Men in Blue being at their dominating best, the middle order woes have seemed to hurt them. They have been heavily reliant on their top 3, and the middle and the lower middle order has failed to score on a consistent basis. Ganguly feels that the selectors need to give a certain player a longer run at No 4 and 5 for him to get ready for the 2019 World Cup.
“I think India will need to get the top 4 right, or maybe even the top 5 right. You can shuffle with no.6 or 7 (regularly) but you have to get your top 5 right. Top 3 are settled in Rohit, Dhawan and Kohli but Team India needs to find a consistent batsman at no.4. They cannot keep shuffling between Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, KL Rahul, MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya. Maybe the experiments will work in India but they will have to find a solution when they travel to South Africa then England and Australia before the World Cup in 2019 in England.
“The ball will do a bit early on (on these tours) and you will get your top order batsmen nicked off early as it happened today. So Team India needs to find a solution at no.4 and they need to find a specialist batsman at no.4 whether it is Rahane or Rahul. If KL Rahul has to bat at no.4 then he also has to bat at no.4 for a period of one year. I do not know in what capacity they have included Dinesh Karthik to replace Rahul or Pandey at no.4 then the management has to have enough faith in him to make him bat at no.4 and not push him down the order. I am sure the Team management will find a solution to this,” Ganguly signed off.
